Indonesia.

Despite the importance of agriculture in Indonesia's economy, smallholder farmers are 2.3 times poorer than the general population – and they have little access to formal financing that could boost their production and income. Because of this, many fall prey to loan sharks and go into debt. To address this vicious cycle, the crowdfunding platform Crowde is helping smallholders connect with investors, who help finance their farms in exchange for profit-sharing. Heri Siswanto discusses the successes – and challenges – of this approach.

The emergence of these peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms has so far been welcomed by Indonesia's financial regulators which see them as offering a much needed service to cash-strapped businesses and consumers at a time when Southeast Asia's biggest economy has been hobbled by sluggish bank lending.

Go-Jek said the acquisition move would bolster its activity in both online and offline payments, as well as increase engagement in the financial services in Indonesia. Go-Jek's mobile payments service Go-Pay is one of the most popular payment platforms in Indonesia.

The low level of financial inclusion in Indonesia is not good for the economy. The central bank of Indonesia (Bank Indonesia) said it could encourage further growth of the shadow economy. This could then jeopardize Indonesia's financial system stability. Being unrecorded, the shadow economy could trigger sudden shocks within the economy.

Indonesia’s central bank has issued a regulation banning use of cryptocurrencies by financial technology companies involved in payment systems, and said it is examining whether there’s a need to regulate trading on virtual currency exchanges.

The digital fiat currency solution initiative is to be part of Indonesia’s FinTech regulatory sandbox designed to promote and facilitate financial technology innovation in the country. While multiple mobile money solutions exist in Indonesia, the lack of interoperability and challenges to regulate them have hindered the adoption and development of digital financial services and true financial inclusion for all Indonesians. The eCurrency solution overcomes these challenges.

This new $30 million fund is the firm’s sixth to date in Southeast Asia, and remarkably its second in 2017 alone. A $27.5 million fund announced in January was fully deployed in less than a year as outside interest in Southeast Asia blew up in 2017, with Indonesia the focal point for investors like Chinese web giants Alibaba and Tencent. Today marks the first close of the new fund.